Tinted glass plates in architectural structures have become a significant feature of contemporary design. These tinted glass plates are used extensively in the construction of office buildings, schools, hospitals, factories and other structures to reduce glare and provide heat absorption and lower the operating costs for air conditioning. In many instances passive plate glass surfaces encompass entire buildings and consequently could be a significant source of electrical energy, if provided with a photovoltaic capability. Preliminary calculations indicate that even with low efficiency photovoltaic responses, sufficient current could be generated to offset a portion, if not all, of electric power requirements for the enclosed structure.
Present commercial solar cells are significantly limited by voltage and efficiency and in experimenting with thin films on glass substrates, an additional goal was established to increase the voltage and efficiency of a photovoltaic cell by combining the appropriate properties of existing materials into a laminated or compound structure.
Regardless of the method of construction, in the end each completed cell must be rearranged in groups or "arrays", and this requirement dictates the final objective of this study which was to devise a means by which these complete arrays consisting of sheets of multiples of identical cells, can be printed or generated simultaneously together with the necessary circuitry, the complete sheet fully equipped and ready for installation.